Company Director/Shareholders – social security and tax peculiarities
In this article we examine some oddities in the Spanish social security and income tax system for company directors/shareholders
Spiders from Madrid
The Spanish tax office is making extensive use of Big Data to track down tax avoiders, ad is having considerable success.
The financial responsibility of directors for company tax debts
Company directors need to be very careful how they handle the business f the company to avoid personal attack for tax debts
Countries considered by Spanish tax law as tax havens
Spanish tax law contains numerous anti-tax abuse provisions that discriminate against countries that are considered to be tax havens (paraisos fiscales). It has maintained a list of such countries since 1991 and the number of countries has gradually reduced over the years as countries sign tax treaties with Spain that contain an exchange of information … Read more
The New Obligation of Gibraltar Financial Institutions to Provide Automatic Exchange of Tax Information to The Spanish Tax Office
As part of the recent agreements of exchange of tax information subscribed by Gibraltar for cooperation in tax matters, the Gibraltar financial institutions will be reporting to the Spanish tax office the relevant tax information of all their account holders, including income on earnings, tax withheld and tax residency status. The first reporting will take … Read more
1.6 Million Companies fail to file annual accounts each year in Spain with no consequences
Its hard to credit this but a recent report in an online newspaper exposes the parlous state of Spain’s compliance with EU rules (and its own laws) on company accounts filings. It seems that 2/3rds of Spanish companies completely ignore the regulations and they do so evidently with complete impunity. The annual accounts, or more … Read more
The new international disclosure rules
More than 90 countries have now signed up to the automatic information system, including most tax havens and the other bad boys like Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and Cyprus (to name but a few!). There is now no place left to hide except places where you would have to be very brave to leave your money. … Read more
Taxing a rent free commercial property
Picture the scene: with youth unemployment in Spain currently hovering around the 50 per cent mark for under 25s (source Eurostat), you decide to give your son a helping hand by letting him set up business in an empty shop you happen to own. As he is your child and you don’t need the money, … Read more
Paying Company directors what they are worth
The dubious sight of well-paid businesspeople walking away from soon to be bankrupt companies—but not before pocketing millions of Euros (in some cases hundreds of millions of Euros)—rightly raised a stink, particularly with those less fortunate employees who lost their jobs and shareholders who lost their money. It was even more unedifying when directors at … Read more
Property owning companies: Don’t trust the bar stool experts!
Those of you who have lived in Spain for many years will probably have been regaled in the past with tales of how people had managed to escape tax liabilities by buying their properties through ‘holding companies’. In fact such ‘bar stool experts’ offering dubious advice still exist—although it is highly doubtful that they are … Read more
